Sabrent today debuted the Rocket 4 line of DRAMless M.2 NVMe Gen 4 SSDs. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, these drives take advantage of the PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface, and provide sequential transfer speeds of up to 7.4 GB/s reads, with up to 6.4 GB/s writes. The drives also offer 4K random access performance of up to 1 million IOPS reads, and 0.95 million IOPS writes. For now, Sabrent is launching 1 TB and 2 TB capacity variants of the Rocket 4, but the company is preparing to launch a larger 4 TB variant soon.

The Sabrent Rocket 4 combines a Phison E27T series DRAMless controller with Kioxia 162-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory (also known as the BiCS 6). There's just a copper foil heat spreader to keep things cool. The 12 nm E27T doesn't run anywhere near as hot as the E18, so you can make do with the heatsink your motherboard includes, or run it the way it is. The 1 TB variant is priced at $99.99, and the 2 TB variant at $199.99. The company didn't reveal pricing of the unreleased 4 TB variant.

Phison Electronics, a leading provider of NAND controllers and NAND storage solutions, today announced a pivotal strategic collaboration with industry giant MediaTek to push forward innovations in generative artificial intelligence (Generative AI) computing and services, and meet demand for fine-tuning AI model computations across industries. Under the collaboration, Phison's cutting-edge AI computing service, aiDAPTIV+, will pair with MediaTek's premier generative AI service platform, MediaTek DaVinci, heralding a new epoch for AI computing and application services and accelerating the adoption of generative AI in everyday life.

MediaTek DaVinci is an advanced, open platform for generative AI services, built on the Generative AI Service Framework (GAISF). MediaTek DaVinci enables developers to build a variety of plugins for enterprise applications, fostering a vibrant ecosystem and enhancing the user experience. Phison's aiDAPTIV+ features a pioneering SSD-integrated AI computing architecture that breaks down large AI models for concurrent operation with SSDs. This approach significantly reduces infrastructure costs and boosts computational efficiency, enabling the training of substantial AI models with limited GPU and DRAM resources. aiDAPTIV+ has already demonstrated its effectiveness in the Industry 4.0 sector and is poised to accelerate AI transformation across various sectors, bolstering business competitiveness. Additionally, aiDAPTIV+ consumes less power than traditional AI server setups for the same AI model fine-tuning tasks and this aligns with the current trend of minimizing energy consumption and carbon footprint.

Phison Electronics, a leading provider of NAND controllers and storage solutions, today announced aiDAPTIV+ partnerships with ASUS, Gigabyte, MAINGEAR, and MediaTek. At GTC 2024, Phison and partners will demonstrate aiDAPTIV+, a hybrid hardware and software large language model (LLMs) fine-tune training solution that enables small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to process and retain local control of their sensitive machine learning (ML) data.

Foundational training of LLMs gives a broad understanding of language but aiDAPTIV+ enables the fine-tuning process that molds these models into specialized tools capable of understanding the topics that deliver precise results for your business needs. Commodity workstation hardware is enhanced with aiDAPTIV+ software, and first generation aiDAPTIVCache Series ai100 SSDs to enable larger training models than previously possible in a workstation form-factor.

MAINGEAR, a leading provider of high-performance custom PC systems, and Phison, a global leader in NAND controllers and storage solutions, today unveiled groundbreaking MAINGEAR PRO AI workstations with Phison's aiDAPTIV+ technology. Specifically engineered to democratize Large Language Model (LLM) development and training for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), these ultra-powerful workstations incorporate aiDAPTIV+ technology to deliver supercomputer LLM training capabilities at a fraction of the cost of traditional AI training servers.

As the demand for large-scale generative AI models continues to surge and their complexity increases, the potential for LLMs also expands. However, this rapid advancement in LLM AI technology has led to a notable boost in hardware requirements, making model training cost-prohibitive and inaccessible for many small to medium businesses.

Sabrent today announced its latest flagship M.2 NVMe SSD series, the Rocket 5. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, the Sabrent Rocket 5 is sold as a bare drive, with an included fan-heatsink that you install if needed. This cooler comes with a tiny fins-stack, two copper heat pipes, and a 20 mm fan. At the heart of the drive is the new Phison PS5026-E26 Max14um controller, paired with Micron B58R 232-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory, and LPDDR4 based DRAM cache. The drive comes in 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacity variants.

The company didn't put out capacity-specific performance or endurance numbers, but mentioned sequential read speeds of up to 14 GB/s, as is characteristic of the Max14um controller variant; up to 12 GB/s sequential write speeds, up to 1.55 million IOPS 4K random reads, with up to 1.8 million IOPS 4K random writes. The Rocket 5 replaces the Rocket 4 Plus as Sabrent's flagship SSD. The 4 TB variant is listed at $730, the 2 TB variant at $340, and the 1 TB variant at $190.

With the advent of high-resolution video and surveillance systems, the demand for stable performance (Sustained Performance) and Power Loss Protection in SSD storage devices continues to rise among video recording equipment and surveillance system integrators. Therefore, Phison Electronics (8299TT), a leading provider of NAND controllers and NAND storage solutions, today announced the launch of specialized SSD storage solutions for video and surveillance systems, including the mid-high-range S12DI and the cost-effective S17T SSD solutions.

With the advent of high-resolution video and surveillance systems, the demand for stable performance (Sustained Performance) and Power Loss Protection in SSD storage devices continues to rise among video recording equipment and surveillance system integrators. Therefore, Phison Electronics (8299TT), a leading provider of NAND controllers and NAND storage solutions, today announced the launch of specialized SSD storage solutions for video and surveillance systems, including the mid-high-range S12DI and the cost-effective S17T SSD solutions.

Phison Electronics, a leading provider of NAND controllers and NAND storage solutions, today announced it has introduced a full range of UFS (Universal Flash Storage) controllers (PS8325, PS8327, PS8329, PS8361). Phison's new UFS solutions support entry-level, middle, premium and flagship smartphone devices to achieve maximum performance in mobile storage and enhance user experiences.

As smartphone devices require higher performance, the storage devices of many entry-level 5G models have transitioned from eMMC to UFS 2.2 storage, and even flagship models of 4G phones have begun adopting the UFS 2.2 specification. Compared to the half-duplex mode of eMMC, the full-duplex mode of UFS 2.2 significantly increases read speeds by three times, not only handling smartphone functions that require processing large amounts of data (such as high-resolution recording and video playback), but also consuming lower power under the same performance speed as eMMC. This helps improve the battery life of smartphones and tablets, meeting the high-performance and low-power consumption needs of mobile devices.

CORSAIR, a world leader in enthusiast components for gamers, creators, and PC builders, today announced the launch of the MP600 ELITE series of SSDs. The MP600 ELITE series is a lineup of high-performance PCIe 4.0 SSD available with a range of cooling options to ensure you get the most from your storage whether you're running a desktop PC, a laptop, or a Sony PlayStation 5 console.

Built using high-density 3D TLC NAND and available in 1 TB and 2 TB capacities at launch, with 4 TB models coming in April, the MP600 ELITE series offers impressive sequential read performance of up to 7,000 MB/sec and write performance of up to 6,500 MB/sec. This is bolstered by random read and write speeds of up to 1,000K and 1,200K IOPS respectively, making them ideal for gamers, creators, and hardware enthusiasts seeking impressive performance on a PCIe 4.0 platform. These SSDs are also backwards compatible with PCIe 3.0 systems.

You can check out our review: Corsair MP600 Elite 2 TB Review - The new Phison E27T Tested

The current crop of PCIe Gen 5 based M.2 NVMe SSDs run scorching hot to deliver sequential transfer speeds of 10 GB/s, requiring some massive cooling solutions with tiny fans. All this might change, as Phison, a leading SSD controller manufacturer, unveiled three new controllers at the 2024 International CES. One of these that stands out, is the PS5031-E31T, which is built on the 7 nm node, and could power the first Gen 5 SSDs delivering 10 GB/s without elaborate cooling solutions. This is a big upgrade from the 12 nm node used by their first Gen 5 controllers. The PS5031-E31T is a DRAMless controller meant for mainstream Gen 5 SSDs. This controller has a 4-channel flash interface (16 CE), a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 host interface, supports capacities of up to 8 TB, and is claimed by Phison to offer sequential transfer rates of up to 10.8 GB/s, and up to 1500K IOPS random access; exceeding the fastest Gen 4 SSDs.

Phison also updated its high-end controller lineup with the new PS5026-E26 Max14um. This is a variant of the E26 that's designed for the upcoming Micron B58R NAND flash chip that offers 2400 MT/s per channel transfers. Over the 8-channel interface of the E26, this finally unlocks sequential transfer speeds exceeding 14 GB/s reads, and 12.7 GB/s sequential writes. This is merely a revision of the existing E26 with updated power-optimized firmware, the underlying silicon is identical. The E26 Max14um is the first controller to surpass 1000 MB/s in all three PCMark 10 storage tests. We have a sample of an SSD powered by the E26 Max14um in our labs, and will post our review soon.

Patriot Memory brought their latest ware to the 2024 International CES that use recent advancements in tech on both the SSD and memory fronts. On the SSD front, this year sees 14 GB/s capable PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs thanks to Phison's E26 Max14um controller; and a new crop of USB4 portable SSDs; while the memory front sees DDR5 speeds go far north of DDR5-6000, thanks to on-module CKDs. Patriot showed us examples of each.

First up, there's the Patriot Viper PV573 Gen 5 NVMe SSD. This thing comes in capacities of up to 4 TB, and combines a Phison E26 Max14um controller with Micron's latest B58R TLC NAND flash chips that offer 2400 MT/s per flash channel. The controller also gets some incremental thermal optimizations, which means the cooling solution for the PV573 is a 16.5 mm-tall fan-heatsink. The drive offers up to 14 GB/s sequential reads, with up to 12 GB/s sequential writes. There's also a slightly de-rated version of this drive, the Viper PV553, which has the same combination of controller and NAND flash, but with transfer speeds of up to 12.4 GB/s reads, with up to 11.8 GB/s writes.

Plextor, one of the most iconic names in PC storage once known for high performance and quality, has announced it will cease operations. Parent company Kioxia has decided to retire the Plextor brand name for solid state drives (SSDs). Instead, it will market products under its Solid State Storage Technology Corporation (SSSTC) brand going forward. The move comes after Kioxia acquired Plextor and its parent company Lite-On's SSD business back in 2019. Since then, Plextor has struggled to keep pace with new storage technologies. With PCIe Gen 4 and PCIe Gen 5 SSD controllers coming to market, Plextor failed to adopt the new Phison and InnoGrit platforms, instead sticking with Marvell controllers, lagging behind at that time.

Now, SSSTC and Kioxia will strictly focus SSD sales on the enterprise, data center, and industrial segments rather than the consumer market. The Plextor website is already redirecting to SSSTC.com, which no longer lists any drives for client PCs. While current Plextor SSD owners will continue to receive warranty support and RMA services, no new Plextor drives are expected to be released. The company had a history stretching back over 30 years of making top-performing optical disk drives and SSDs. Similarly to OCZ after its acquisition by Toshiba, the Plextor name will now fade into history. But in the fast-moving storage business, companies live and die by their ability to adopt cutting-edge technologies. Hence, companies are always on the edge of their seats, trying to survive.

Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash controller and storage solutions, today announced the company's predictions for 2024 trends in NAND flash infrastructure deployment. The company predicts that rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies will continue apace, with PCIe 5.0-based infrastructure providing high-performance, sustainable support for AI workload consistency as adoption rapidly expands. PCIe 5.0 NAND flash solutions will be at the core of a well-balanced hardware ecosystem, with private AI deployments such as on-premise large language models (LLMs) driving significant growth in both everyday AI and the infrastructure required to support it.

"We are moving past initial excitement over AI toward wider everyday deployment of the technology. In these configurations, high-quality AI output must be achieved by infrastructure designed to be secure, while also being affordable. The organizations that leverage AI to boost productivity will be incredibly successful," said Sebastien Jean, CTO, Phison US. "Building on the widespread proliferation of AI applications, infrastructure providers will be responsible for making certain that AI models do not run up against the limitations of memory - and NAND flash will become central to how we configure data center architectures to support today's developing AI market while laying the foundation for success in our fast-evolving digital future."

Today, Seagate Technology Holdings plc, a world leader in mass-data storage infrastructure solutions, announced the Seagate Nytro 4350 NVMe solid state drive (SSD), the company's latest addition to its Seagate Nytro drive portfolio. Engineered with Phison, the new drive delivers consistent performance, low latency, low power consumption, and high quality of service (QoS) for data centers.

Designed to improve QoS, the PCIe Gen 4 drive achieves over ten times the bandwidth while doubling the throughput of SATA SSDs. The Seagate Nytro 4350 SSD removes data bottlenecks with up to 58K IOPS random write speeds and up to 800K IOPS random read speeds to provide consistent response times and offers more computing power with less energy consumption with the drive's 3.3 V power supply. The Seagate Nytro 4350 brings up to 1.92 TB capacity in an ultra-small M.2 2280 form factor and is designed to take on enterprise workloads, delivering 1 DWPD at 2M hours MTBF for enhanced endurance.

Phison Electronics, a global leader in NAND controllers and storage solutions, announced today that the company has expanded its portfolio of PCIe 5.0 high-speed transmission solutions with PCIe 5.0, CXL 2.0 compatible redriver and retimer data signal conditioning IC products. Leveraging the company's deep expertise in PCIe engineering, Phison is the only signal conditioners provider that offers the widest portfolio of multi-channel PCIe 5.0 redriver and retimer solutions and PCIe 5.0 storage solutions designed specifically to meet the data infrastructure demands of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI+ML), edge computing, high-performance computing, and other data-intensive, next-gen applications. At the 2023 Open Compute Project Global Summit, the Phison team is showcasing its expansive PCIe 5.0 portfolio, demonstrating the redriver and retimer technologies alongside other enterprise NAND flash, illustrating a holistic vision for a PCIe 5.0 data ecosystem to address the most demanding applications of the AI-everywhere era.

"Phison has focused industry-leading R&D efforts on developing in-house, chip-to-chip communication technologies since the introduction of the PCIe 3.0 protocol, with PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 5.0 solutions now in mass production, and PCIe 6.0 solutions now in the design phase," said Michael Wu, President & General Manager, Phison US. "Phison's accumulated experience in high-speed signaling enables our team to deliver retimer and redriver design solutions that are optimized for top signal integration, low power usage, and high temperature endurance, to deliver interface speeds for the most challenging compute environments."

The advent of PCIe 5.0 SSDs with Phison's E26 controllers has been a double-edged sword. While these SSDs offer impressively high data throughputs, they come with a significant drawback: severe overheating issues that can cause the SSDs not only to throttle down but to shut off entirely. TechPowerUp first noted this issue back in May, in our Corsair MP700 review, where the uncooled drive shut down after 86 seconds of reads and after 55 seconds of writes. Regarding criticism from tech reviewers, Corsair has released a firmware update (version 22.1) for its MP700 SSD to ensure that it throttles down rather than shutting off when overheated. Yet, many other SSDs like the Crucial T700, Seagate FireCuda 540, Gigabyte Aorus Gen 5 10000, and ADATA Legend 970 still suffer from temperature issues.

However, it's crucial to note that these extreme overheating problems occur only when the SSDs run without any cooling. While some manufacturers have planned firmware updates to address the issue, Corsair is the only company that has taken tangible action so far. Crucial has released a new firmware (PACR5102), but the ComputerBase report indicates that the SSD continues to shut off at high temperatures. The problem, though, can generally be mitigated with proper cooling. Whether using the included cooler or placing the SSD under a motherboard cover, temperatures usually stay below the critical limit, thus avoiding a complete shutdown. When we tested the SSTC Tiger Shark Elite 2 TB with Phison E26 (with updated firmware) without adequate cooling, the SSD continued to operate and throttled down, indicating that the remaining SSDs using this controller need a proper firmware update that throttles the SSD instead of shutting it down.

Recently, the spot market for NAND Flash chips has seen a rise in active price inquiries for certain products, a movement driven by successful increases in wafer contract prices. TrendForce reports this uptick primarily stems from negotiations in late August between NAND Flash suppliers and key Chinese module makers. These discussions led to a new wafer contract that successfully boosted the price of 512 Gb wafers by approximately 10%.

Other suppliers have also raised prices for their comparable products, signaling a shift in supplier sentiment: they are now less inclined to finalize deals at lower prices. This change has contributed to a short-term surge in the wafer spot market. Nevertheless, whether this surge in procurement is supported by actual end-user demand remains uncertain, as these orders have arisen in reaction to adjustments in supply-side pricing.

GIGABYTE Technology, one of the top global manufacturers of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, announced today the latest AORUS Gen5 12000 SSD with an M.2 2280 form factor. Harnessing the power of a PCIe 5.0 controller with ultra-fast 3D-TLC NAND Flash, the AORUS Gen5 12000 SSD delivers a boosted performance of more than 70% over PCIe 4.0 SSDs with easy installation and superb capability. Equipped with the ultimate thermal design of M.2 Thermal Guard Extreme, the AORUS Gen5 12000 SSD becomes the perfect choice for power users, content creators, and gamers.

With PCIe 5.0 support on new motherboard platforms, the bandwidth and transfer performance are raised to the next level. The AORUS Gen5 12000 SSD is equipped with the latest Phison PS5026-E26 8-channel controller, providing users with superior control of random read speeds. Along with an over 232-layer stack structure of 3D-TLC NAND Flash and a built-in LPDDR4 cache design, the AORUS Gen5 12000 SSD unleashes the full potential of PCIe 5.0 performance with 12 GB/s ultra-fast access speed, which is more than a 70% increase compared to its predecessor. Furthermore, with AORUS optimized Direct Storage support, the AORUS Gen5 12000 SSD brings next-level performance with optimized stability.

Phison Electronics, a global leader in NAND flash and storage solutions, announces a technology demonstration of unique customer-based solutions fully realized through the IMAGIN+ customization service at Flash Memory Summit 2023.

Phison has expanded its IMAGIN+ design service to include AI computational models and AI services solutions. Customers work with specialized Phison teams to design and engineer custom flash deployments that precisely address the data performance and endurance requirements of next generation products including those highly optimized for aiDAPTIV AI+ML workloads. With IMAGIN+ design services, Phison teams work hand-in-hand with customers to deliver AI-boosted SSD solutions that address demanding requirements.

Phison Electronics, a global leader in NAND controllers and storage solutions, announced today the expansion of its IMAGIN+ service to include AI computational models and AI services solutions. Phison's aiDAPTIV+ utilizes Phison's innovative integration of SSDs into the AI computing framework and expands NAND storage solutions in the AI application market. Phison has been a global leader deeply engaged in NAND controller innovations for more than 23 years. In recent years, the company has developed and integrated AI and machine learning technologies into NAND controllers and algorithms in order to enhance the computational performance and reliability of the company's NAND storage solutions.

Additionally, Phison has established a data science team, developed and deployed relevant AI technologies, and created a world-class validation laboratory. These efforts have accelerated the adoption of Phison's storage solutions in various applications, including PCs, mobile phones, automobiles, gaming platforms, enterprise data center & edge applications, supply chain logistics, and more. With the recent rise of large-scale generative AI models such as ChatGPT, the possibilities for artificial intelligence to assist both businesses and individuals in the future are significant. The rapid growth of AI models has also led to a significant increase in the hardware infrastructure cost associated with providing AI services.

The first batch of PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs didn't quite deliver on the promise of doubling performance from PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs, but now it appears that Sabrent has managed to work some magic with its upcoming Rocket X5 SSD. The SSD is still based on the same Phison E26 controller as all other current PCIe 5.0 NVMe drives and from what we know, the controller is paired to Micron's 232-layer B58R NAND, a combination that should be able to reach 2400 MT/s across eight channels. However, it's not the only drive with this combination of components, so it seems like the magic here might be in the firmware.

A 2 TB version of the Rocket X5 was tested in CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4 and reached a read speed of 14,179 MB/s or just over 14 GB/s, with write speeds trailing somewhat at 12,280 MB/s. The random 4K numbers are looking good too with 106 MB/s for reads and 448 MB/s for writes, a step up from the competition at least, if not a major one with regards to the read speed. The downside you ask? Sabrent has equipped the Rocket X5 with not only a heatsink and heatpipes, but also a tiny fan, which is likely to add some noise at some time in the future when the fan starts to give up. We obviously don't know the price of the Rocket X5 either, but Sabrent tends to have competitively priced products.

The European brand expands its portfolio of PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSDs in M.2 format with a model dedicated to the PS 5 console. It is the IRDM PRO SLIM - ideal not only for gamers, but also professionals and enthusiasts.

The IRDM PRO SLIM is a twin model of the IRDM PRO M.2 SSD. Unlike its predecessor, the new drive is offered without a heatsink, making it 100% compliant with Sony's requirements for PlayStation 5 console drives. The technical parameters speak in favour of choosing an SSD from a European manufacturer. Maximum read and write speeds are 7000/6850 MB/s, respectively. The PCIe 4 x4 NVMe interface delivers twice the speed of older 3 x4 solutions. The memory speed is also influenced by DRAM buffer of up to 2 GB, thanks to which the drive works stably even under heavy use.

Seagate has released a new firmware update for its FireCuda 530 series of NVMe SSDs that adds DirectStorage support. Seagate is to our knowledge only the second company to release a firmware with DirectStorage support for its SSDs, but we're expecting more to follow. The FireCuda 530 is based on Phison's E18 controller, which is commonly found in a range of NVMe M.2 SSDs from several major and minor SSD brands, with Sabrent being the first company to have announced a DirectStorage firmware update for its drives based on the same controller.

To update to the new firmware, you need the serial number of your FireCuda 530 drive, which you then have to enter on Segate's support site to be able to download the update. The company didn't specify how the firmware update is done, but it seems to be a standalone installer, rather than using some kind of SSD tool, which most SSD makers provide for their drives these days. The new firmware is said to be "reducing CPU overhead and I/O latency, load times and asset streaming are streamlined—allowing for improved multitasking and optimized PC gaming with DirectStorage compatible games." The list of games that support DirectStorage is quite short at the moment, but hopefully we'll see more games implementing support now that there is supported hardware out there.

Phison Electronics, a global leader in NAND controllers and storage solutions, will showcase its high-speed transmission and storage solutions at the annual Taipei International Computer Show (COMPUTEX) in Taiwan. At COMPUTEX, Phison will illuminate the future of intelligent storage. The show kicks off on Tuesday, May 30 through Friday, June 2.

Building upon its globally acclaimed flagship PCIe 5.0 SSD PS5026-E26 storage solution, Phison Electronics will unveil its latest offering at COMPUTEX. The new addition is the PCIe 5.0 DRAM-less SSD controller PS5031-E31T, featuring a 7 nm process that ensures low power consumption. With an impressive maximum read/write performance of 10.5 GB/s, it represents a PCIe 5.0 SSD storage solution that excels in performance and power efficiency. In addition, Phison will introduce the next-generation PCIe 4.0 DRAM-less SSD controller PS5027-E27T, engineered with a 12 nm process and offering a remarkable maximum read/write speed of 7400/6400 MB/s. It is anticipated that the PCIe 5.0 PS5031-E31T and PCIe 4.0 PS5027-E27T SSD storage solutions will comprehensively meet the diverse needs of PC OEM partners and customers.

ADATA and XPG, its gamer focused sub-brand, unveiled a plethora of memory and storage products at the 2023 Computex. We begin with PC memory, and we see the company showing off its upcoming models of the XPG DDR5 memory targeting enthusiasts. These include the XPG Caster RGB DDR5, which is capable of DDR5-9000, the XPG Lancer RGB ROG edition, capable of DDR5-7200, and the company's overclocking-capable DDR5-6400 R-DIMM targeting Xeon W workstations. The company also showed us "Project NeonStorm." This is an innovative new SSD cooling system that uses a self-contained liquid cooler.

The way this liquid cooler works is that a high conductivity heat spreader transfers heat to a chamber containing a coolant fluid. This coolant heats up an aluminium alloy tube via convection. The inner wall of this tube serves as an airflow channel for a 20 mm fan. ADATA claims that this solution offers "over 20% better heat dissipation compared to SSDs without water cooling." This is also one of the very first SSDs we've seen that utilize Silicon Motion SM2508 PCIe Gen 5 NVMe controller. ADATA claims sequential reads of up to 14 GB/s, with up to 12 GB/s sequential writes. The drive comes in capacity-based models of up to 8 TB (could include 2 TB, 4 TB, and 8 TB). ADATA also showed off the Legend 970 PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD that uses a Phison E26-series controller, and comes in capacities of 1 TB and 2 TB. This drive belts out up to 10 GB/s reads, with up to 10 GB/s writes.

A trend we've seen in the 2023 Computex is that SSD manufacturers aren't advertising their feisty Gen 5 NVMe SSDs with the elaborate cooling solutions that they sorely need, but rather as bare drives, with the cooling options marketed separately. In practice, manufacturers could get retailers to bundle Gen 5 SSDs with a selection of their coolers. This lets them trim some of the criticism of just how hot SSDs have gotten over just one generation. Team Group showed off its T-Force Cardea Z5 lines of M.2 Gen 5 NVMe SSDs. There are two distinct lines with the same names. One of these comes with a maximum sequential read speed of 12 GB/s, while the other comes with 14 GB/s. Both have their respective 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacity variants. Both use 3D TLC NAND flash. The under-the-hood difference between the 12 GB/s and 14 GB/s versions of the Cardea Z5 is that while the 12 GB/s variant uses a Phison E26-series controller, the 14 GB/s one uses an InnoGrit IG5666 controller. Team Group intends to eventually re-brand the 14 GB/s variant as the Cardea Z54A series.

Team Group also announced a handful cooling solutions to pair with these Gen 5 SSDs. The most striking of these is the T-Force Siren, an all-in-one (AIO) closed loop liquid M.2 NVMe SSD cooler, with as 120 mm radiator. The name is a bit of a misnomer, as SSD coolers with 20 mm fans is what a siren might sound like. Obviously, this cooler is overkill, and helps the SSD deliver its best performance, but there are other options from the company. The T-Force AirFlow I uses two copper heatpipes that run through the base-plate, pulling heat from the controller, NAND flash, and DRAM, and pushing it through an aluminium fin-stack arranged vertically. This is then ventilated by a 30 mm fan. The T-Force Airflow II uses a slightly different approach, with a single thicker heat pipe arranged in a C-shape, with radially-projecting finnage that have the appearance of a cylinder. At the other end of this is a 30 mm fan.